Friday, June 24, 2011

It's Auction Time On SPEED!

Friday features a clash of timeslots that will leave NASCAR fans talking. TV executives get put in tough spots sometimes and when push came to shove, this time NASCAR lost.

SPEED comes on the air at 2:30PM with a preview edition of NASCAR Live. John Roberts hosts with Randy Pemberton. Wendy Venturini and Hermie Sadler are the reporters.

Sprint Cup Series practice is next on SPEED at 3PM. Adam Alexander hosts with Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Hammond in the TV booth. Matt Yocum and Ralph Sheheen are the reporters.

At 4:30PM, SPEED closes out the NASCAR coverage with a final edition of NASCAR Live. Roberts, Pemberton and Venturini return this time joined by reporter Bob Dillner.

What follows at 5PM has been the subject of much discussion. SPEED has opted to tape delay the Sprint Cup Series road course qualifying from Infineon Raceway in favor of six live hours of another Barrett-Jackson auto auction.

This one is from Orange County, California. You can click here to see the cars that will be crossing the auction block. Less than spectacular is a nice way to sum it up.

The Cup Series qualifying begins at 6:30PM ET and it will be tape-delayed by SPEED until 11PM ET. That pushes NASCAR out of East Coast primetime and ends a long streak of SPEED presenting the best NASCAR practice and qualifying coverage on TV.

It will be Adam Alexander, Kyle Petty and Larry McReynolds calling the road course qualifying for SPEED. Handling the reporting duties will be Chris Neville and Marty Snider. There should be several interesting aspects to this delayed coverage.

Today, social media makes tape-delaying any kind of live sports programming meaningless. This will be the situation for SPEED. Across Facebook and Twitter, the qualifying results will be passed along by the teams, the sponsors and even NASCAR live as it happens.

None of the major NASCAR Internet websites will hold the information until the TV coverage hits the air. In today's world, the only thing that SPEED will have at 11PM on Saturday is upset fans. They have a reason to be, because there were options.

One would be to utilize the NASCAR.com website and stream live coverage of qualifying through the RaceBuddy application. Just like TNT will do for the race on Sunday, this simple Internet application is effective and can be seen on iPads, iPhones and on the Sprint Mobile app.

SPEED could certainly air the entire show at 11PM on delay as planned, but at least the live qualifying would have been made available online to fans as it happened. In the current scenario, trying to shut the TV door and pretend fans will tune-in late at night to see what they can easily find out happened hours earlier is ridiculous.

This TV scenario is made even more ironic because PRN radio will have live coverage of qualifying as well. With many of the PRN stations streaming online, it's not hard to find this coverage. Many veteran NASCAR fans already use the "I Heart Radio" app for cell phones to hear the local MRN and PRN affiliates.

Sure, it's just qualifying. Sure, there is a top 35 rule. Sure, there are all kinds of excuses and reasons to use for justifying the Barrett-Jackson coverage. It's the right of the network executives to make decisions they believe are in the best interest of SPEED.

Perhaps, FOX and SPEED executive David Hill picked a bad week to tell the national media that he wants six of the Sprint Cup Series races currently on FOX to move to SPEED eventually. His reasoning was simple. After all, SPEED is the home of NASCAR coverage. Right?

We welcome your comments on this topic. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. Thank you for taking the time to stop by The Daly Planet.

33 comments:

PJ
said...

Watching NASCAR qualifying is like watching grass grow. I love NASCAR and watch most of the races, but enough already! We don't need endless hour after hour of practice, qualifying where most of the field is pre-determined and the same talking heads always saying the same thing. Bring on the auction. Barrett Jackson ROCKS!

I know that Barrett Jackson is streamed online, so for an event as lackluster as the Orange County auction it should be predominantly online, since Nascar wont allow qualifying to be streamed. That is the most logical solution to the situation. I agree completely that tape delaying in the era of social media is pointless.

JDThe insult to NASCAR fans by SPEED is made exponentially worse by the fact that the Barrett Jackson auctions suck! Over on Discovery they carry Mecum auctions every Saturday and they are awesome. More excitement, better announcing and better cars than BJ. Either Speed is the NASCAR channel or its not. It cant be a part time deal. Putting an auction on the air just shows how disconnected SPEED management is and why VERSUS will eventually supplant them.

Since we are batting arounf coverage of Barrett-Jackson I have wondered for awhile are their auctions paid programs? In other words do they buy the time, pay for the talent and production and also sell ads during the broadcasts?

I have wondered this as there are a number of auto auctions (not the used car type -- good cars), but Barrett-Jackson is the only one Speed covers.

I enjoyed qualifying back when it meant something. It no longer means much so I have no interest in it now. It is usually important for a few teams who ae not locked in the top 35. With the potential loss of more teams, it will not be important to anyone. Even now, the only cars that find qualifying important are start and parkers.

it's called "Speed"--last I knew, cars being auctioned barely move. I suspect, however, that a lot of people like to watch rich people buying cars for some reason I can't fathom (PJ, I consider five minutes of a car auction like watching grass grow, much less five hours--unlike qualifying, where something is actually happening and I have an interest in the outcome.) I will look for PRN online, I'm not bothering to stay up that late.

JD, curiosity question. Is this a Speed problem or TNT's? During the Fox season, Speed does their qualifying. ESPN, they do their own Cup qualifying for their part of season. So does Speed do pole for this stretch because they have to, or do it as a favor/agreement for TNT?

Last week I was watching qualify at Michigan on Speed and simultaneously monitoring Jayski's semi-live qualifying site on my iPad. Normally, Jayski's site updates are 5 to 10 minutes behind the live broadcast, but last week, Jayski's site was a full 10 minutes ahead of Speed's "live" broadcast.

A. Qualifying and starting position on a road course are very important.B. It's so much fun to watch road course qualifying. Watching some of the big boys just barely hang on and the ringers going for broke.

I have mixed emotions about the BJ auction vs. Cup qualifying. Won't watch anything Waltrip is broadcasting for very long so that's usually out anyway. Road course qualifying is probably more important than ovals but practice is somewhat boring because of all the different agendas.The prices and commissions at BJ are so far out of reach it's like dreaming when you watch it. I agree Mecum is alot more realistic. Agree Speed's tape delay is useless. Lose it.

Barret-Jackson is fine, as long as it is in January. They have beat the dead horse enough with the others. Cup qualifying is good as long as it is "rapid fire" on ovals. The way it should always be. Not two cars, then ten commercials, two cars, twenty commercials, etc.Do it like the short tracks across the country: Rapid fire, then done.

If Speed wants to create additional "lifestyle" programming, why not have these auctions live on, say, a Thursday night? Thursday is a big TV night for the networks and most have their biggest shows on. And it's not like the people buying and selling cars at the auction need to be punching the time card at work. So why aren't the auctions during the week and the NASCAR coverage live on the weekend?

I had the Nascar shows from Speed on with the TV on mute while I watched another TV and did other things. I had the volume on for the beginning of Cup practice. Someone said their water temp was rising on the twisty sections of the track. Durrl chimed in and opined that the jostling of the constant lefts and rights could be causing it. By the way, let me assure that what DW said was nonsense. Then he caught himself and said he couldn't prove what he just said. I immediately hit the mute button again. I tried listening in a few more times and caught more blather and left the TV on mute which is really an enjoyable way of watching the broadcasts. If something happens or catches your eye, you can turn up the volume. I agree with the earlier posts. B-J should be on in the Winter or during the week, but heck, why should Speed get real now??

We're missing qualifying coverage for this? Are you serious? Who cares about the stupid auction? They show the ridiculous thing fifty times a year it seems anyway! I don't give a damn about watching people I don't know bid on cars I will never own for prices that I could never fathom spending on in the first place. If I could afford that much I'd do a lot more sensible things with the money than buy an overpriced show vehicle. This is entertainment? "Oh! Someone just raised the bid! Honey! Make some popcorn and get back in here quick, it went up to 75k! You're missing it!" Give me a break. Let me know when the executives at Speed get their heads on straight. Speed and Fox fear the possibility of a Nascar channel? Well now, I wonder why...

While road course qualifying isn't as sleep-inducing as oval qualifying, I'd still prefer to watch the auctions. I always find them entertaining and pick up a bit of car knowledge from Varsha and crew.